Kenny Anderson: "I wanted to go to Syracuse."

[OttoMets]

Well, your memory here will be a lot sharper than mine, having been at the game. I watched it again.

Your criticism of Edwards doesn't hold. He only played 9 mins in the 1st half and we were ahead by 4 at the half. He scored twice as many points as Johnson in half the time and as many as Ellis in a quarter of the time. Even with his difficulties, if he had played in the second half, we would have won. We desperately needed a PG. Thompson was super but no PG.

Scott had a horrendous game with only 18% shooting, yet played 25 mins. Manning on the other hand never got on the floor. Coleman (Sr.) was stuck at center for the whole game. We should have won that game going away. Terrible.

Wonder if anyone else noticed this - at 34:40, Edwards gets a little impatient with Conrad McRae.

 

[orange2win]

It absolutely DOES hold. There's a reason that Edwards only played 9 minutes and was relegated to the bench, despite scoring some points in a quick flurry. That reason is that he was being exploited defensively. Your attempt to deflect blame are misguided -- because you seem to be agreeing with my main point about the team suffering for not having a true lead guard out on the floor for most of the game. Which brings me full circle to the original point of the thread in that I wish we'd had a better guy manning that role, who Boeheim might have played more in this game or trusted more to play through difficulties. Someone like Kenny Anderson.

No, it was a major JB blunder.

Frosh Michael Edwards replaced Dave Johnson at the start of BE schedule that year and thereafter started every game (4th in tot. mins played). He led the team to the BE title, beating a super Hoya team of Mourning/Mutombo and Stoudimire in the final game. He was the only true PG on the entire SU team. He was by this point in the season essentially a battle tested Soph. and that silly decision by JB cost us the game. If you rewatch the tape, you will actually see Coleman playing PG for a bit!

Edwards gets a bad rap because he lost his place the following year to the brilliant incoming Adrian Autry. By the way, the Minnesota game was Rich Manning's last in an SU uniform. He left and went on to great things at the University of Washington!

 

[orangefog]

No, it was a major JB blunder.

Frosh Michael Edwards replaced Dave Johnson at the start of BE schedule that year and thereafter started every game (4th in tot. mins played). He led the team to the BE title, beating a super Hoya team of Mourning/Mutombo and Stoudimire in the final game. He was the only true PG on the entire SU team. He was by this point in the season essentially a battle tested Soph. and that silly decision by JB cost us the game. If you rewatch the tape, you will actually see Coleman playing PG for a bit!

Edwards gets a bad rap because he lost his place the following year to the brilliant incoming Adrian Autry. By the way, the Minnesota game was Rich Manning's last in an SU unifor He left and went on to great things at the University of Washington.

Edwards was the first point guard that I've seen that couldn't dribble.

 

[RF2044]

No, it was a major JB blunder.

Frosh Michael Edwards replaced Dave Johnson at the start of BE schedule that year and thereafter started every game (4th in tot. mins played). He led the team to the BE title, beating a super Hoya team of Mourning/Mutombo and Stoudimire in the final game. He was the only true PG on the entire SU team. He was by this point in the season essentially a battle tested Soph. and that silly decision by JB cost us the game. If you rewatch the tape, you will actually see Coleman playing PG for a bit!

Edwards gets a bad rap because he lost his place the following year to the brilliant incoming Adrian Autry. By the way, the Minnesota game was Rich Manning's last in an SU unifor He left and went on to great things at the University of Washington.

I actually can confirm that we tried to play Coleman at PG that game... :bang:

But again, I don't see how any of that invalidates my OP that you responded to. I didn't "blame" the loss on Edwards, I said that I have nightmares about how he got worked over by the bigger, far more physical Minnesota guards [and Lynch was no slouch--he was a second round pick by Charlotte who played in the NBA at least briefly, IIRC]. You're right--Edwards WAS the only true PG on that team. The problem was, he wasn't very good, and he was a defensive liability that was exploited in that game.

I really am not arguing whether it was smart for JB to play him more or not, I just point out that Boeheim pulled him and only played him 9 minutes for a reason.

 

[OttoMets]

No, it was a major JB blunder.

Frosh Michael Edwards replaced Dave Johnson at the start of BE schedule that year and thereafter started every game (4th in tot. mins played). He led the team to the BE title, beating a super Hoya team of Mourning/Mutombo and Stoudimire in the final game. He was the only true PG on the entire SU team. He was by this point in the season essentially a battle tested Soph. and that silly decision by JB cost us the game. If you rewatch the tape, you will actually see Coleman playing PG for a bit!

Edwards gets a bad rap because he lost his place the following year to the brilliant incoming Adrian Autry. By the way, the Minnesota game was Rich Manning's last in an SU uniform. He left and went on to great things at the University of Washington!

I watched the first half and the last 10 minutes of your link today. Looked like a team loss to me. Edwards didn't defend well, but neither did his teammates. He scored some points, didn't run the offense terribly well; they all looked baffled when Minnesota went to a zone (where have we seen that before?).

Rewatching most of the game cements my view: Kenny Anderson would've made this another very talented Syracuse team, but championships are won on the court. Any team that featured Billy Owens playing 40 minutes of uninterested defense, the liability that was Derrick Coleman's behavior, and some collective atrocious free throw shooting was going to face an uphill battle winning 6 against increasingly good teams.

 

[orangefog]

I watched the first half and the last 10 minutes of your link today. Looked like a team loss to me. Edwards didn't defend well, but neither did his teammates. He scored some points, didn't run the offense terribly well; they all looked baffled when Minnesota went to a zone (where have we seen that before?).

Rewatching most of the game cements my view: Kenny Anderson would've made this another very talented Syracuse team, but championships are won on the court. Any team that featured Billy Owens playing 40 minutes of uninterested defense, the liability that was Derrick Coleman's behavior, and some collective atrocious free throw shooting was going to face an uphill battle winning 6 against increasingly good teams.

I agree, I only got to watch the first half and they didn't show up. They thought they could just roll over Minnesota. And they did at times, they just went over the top many times. They offensive rebounded at will. But, total lack of effort and focus.

 

[orange2win]

I actually can confirm that we tried to play Coleman at PG that game... :bang:

But again, I don't see how any of that invalidates my OP that you responded to. I didn't "blame" the loss on Edwards, I said that I have nightmares about how he got worked over by the bigger, far more physical Minnesota guards [and Lynch was no slouch--he was a second round pick by Charlotte who played in the NBA at least briefly, IIRC]. You're right--Edwards WAS the only true PG on that team. The problem was, he wasn't very good, and he was a defensive liability that was exploited in that game.

I really am not arguing whether it was smart for JB to play him more or not, I just point out that Boeheim pulled him and only played him 9 minutes for a reason.

"The problem was, he wasn't any good." Hmmm. Consider this.

Michael Edwards was just 4 points shy of being the only PG in SU history to lead his team to a BE league title and a BE tournament title in the same year. He joins Eddie Moss, the Pearl, the General and Jason Hart in winning the BE league and losing in the tourney final. However, Edwards is the only one of them to have done it in his Fr. year.

In both the BE tourney title game against UConn (25 mins) and the NCAA S16 game (9 mins), JB yanked him. In both cases it cost JB dearly.

Edwards was not flash, just meat and potatoes. Never once was he the leading scorer on the team, but was always high on Asts. I too was never very excited about his game, but the record speaks for itself.

 

[RF2044]

"The problem was, he wasn't any good." Hmmm. Consider this.

Michael Edwards was just 4 points shy of being the only PG in SU history to lead his team to a BE league title and a BE tournament title in the same year. He joins Eddie Moss, the Pearl, the General and Jason Hart in winning the BE league and losing in the tourney final. However, Edwards is the only one of them to have done it in his Fr. year.

In both the BE tourney title game against UConn (25 mins) and the NCAA S16 game (9 mins), JB yanked him. In both cases it cost JB dearly.

Edwards was not flash, just meat and potatoes. Never once was he the leading scorer on the team, but was always high on Asts. I too was never very excited about his game, but the record speaks for itself.

Nonsense revisionist history. That's because he played on a team that had Derrick Coleman, Billy Owens, Stephen Thompson, and LeRon Ellis. That team came close to winning the BE league title and the BE tournament title IN SPITE of him being by far the weakest link, not because of his substantive contributions.

Missing out on Kenny Anderson was massively detrimental -- especially because we replaced him with a player who was so generally inadequate. I don't say that to trash Edwards, but rather present it as a statement of fact.

 

[SWC75]

Not only a championship but one of the greatest college teams of all time.

Maybe we should have a companion thread to the "Four Year Basketball" post for all the recruits we think we should have gotten.

1982-83
Sam Perkins
Leo Rautins
Tony Bruin
Eric Santifer
Gene Waldron
Bench: Sean Kerins, Rafael Addison, Wendell Aleixis

1991-92
Conrad McRae
Donyell Marshall
Lawrence Moten
Dave Johnson
Adrian Autry
Bench: Mike Hopkins

2011-12
Fab Melo
Anthony Davis
Kris Joseph
Brandon Triche
Scoop Jardine
Bench: Dion Waiters, CJ Fair

etc., etc.

 

[SWC75]

"The problem was, he wasn't any good." Hmmm. Consider this.

Michael Edwards was just 4 points shy of being the only PG in SU history to lead his team to a BE league title and a BE tournament title in the same year. He joins Eddie Moss, the Pearl, the General and Jason Hart in winning the BE league and losing in the tourney final. However, Edwards is the only one of them to have done it in his Fr. year.

In both the BE tourney title game against UConn (25 mins) and the NCAA S16 game (9 mins), JB yanked him. In both cases it cost JB dearly.

Edwards was not flash, just meat and potatoes. Never once was he the leading scorer on the team, but was always high on Asts. I too was never very excited about his game, but the record speaks for itself.

Edwards had a better first year than people realize. His problem was that he was never able to build on it and declined instead of progressing.
(minutes per game - the rest per 40 mintues)

1989-90: 24.0m 10.5p 1.8r 8.5a 1.5s 0.1b +22.4 5.3mfg 0.4mft 4.1to 3.1pf -12.9 = 9.5NP 4.8OE 4.7FG
1990-91: 26.2m 12.0p 2.3r 4.0a 1.1s 0.1b +19.5 7.0mfg 0.6mft 3.3to 2.1pf -13.0 = 6.5NP 4.4OE 2.1FG
1991-92: 13.6m 13.3p 2.9r 3.6a 1.1s 0.0b +20.9 9.3mfg 0.7mft 2.9to 1.6pf -14.5 = 6.4NP 3.3OE 3.1FG
1992-93: 9.5m 10.7p 2.5r 5.9a 0.8s 0.0b +19.9 8.8mfg 0.8mft 4.6to 2.5pf -16.7 = 3.2NP 1.1OE 2.1FG

He could score but his assists declined as the talent level around him declined, (because of the probation). He missed more shots as he came to be relied on for more scoring. He had too many turnovers but improved in that area until his senior year when i suspect his decreased playing time might have impacted his concentration. The stats don't show his defense and as we've seen small guards don't do well in Boeheim's zone.

That Kenny Anderson would have been an upgrade is pretty obvious.

 

[orangefog]

Edwards had a better first year than people realize. His problem was that he was never able to build on it and declined instead of progressing.
(minutes per game - the rest per 40 mintues)

1989-90: 24.0m 10.5p 1.8r 8.5a 1.5s 0.1b +22.4 5.3mfg 0.4mft 4.1to 3.1pf -12.9 = 9.5NP 4.8OE 4.7FG
1990-91: 26.2m 12.0p 2.3r 4.0a 1.1s 0.1b +19.5 7.0mfg 0.6mft 3.3to 2.1pf -13.0 = 6.5NP 4.4OE 2.1FG
1991-92: 13.6m 13.3p 2.9r 3.6a 1.1s 0.0b +20.9 9.3mfg 0.7mft 2.9to 1.6pf -14.5 = 6.4NP 3.3OE 3.1FG
1992-93: 9.5m 10.7p 2.5r 5.9a 0.8s 0.0b +19.9 8.8mfg 0.8mft 4.6to 2.5pf -16.7 = 3.2NP 1.1OE 2.1FG

He could score but his assists declined as the talent level around him declined, (because of the probation). He missed more shots as he came to be relied on for more scoring. He had too many turnovers but improved in that area until his senior year when i suspect his decreased playing time might have impacted his concentration. The stats don't show his defense and as we've seen small guards don't do well in Boeheim's zone.

That Kenny Anderson would have been an upgrade is pretty obvious.

I like these stats, they provide a lot of information. However, I was never less confident in a lead guard as I was with Michael Edwards. For a little guy, he dribbled so high and out of control. He was not a good floor leader. But, as stated, he was surrounded by amazing talent. So, his job was kind of to pass and move and he was our designated outside shooter when Tony Scott wasn't on the floor. He really wasn't a point guard as much as he was a guy that brought the ball up and passed it off and then became a spot up shooter. I may be wrong, but that is my recollection of his freshman year.

 

[721Comstock]

“I wanted to go to Syracuse University, but my mother went to visit Georgia Tech with me, and on the way home she said: You’re going to Georgia Tech. Coach Cremins will take care of you,” he says in the film.

Kenny Anderson’s relationship with his mother (and his money) profiled in new film ‘Mr. Chibbs’

Maybe somebody should share this with Jordan Tucker?
We don't want him having the same sorts of regrets decades from now.

 

[longtimefan]

No, it was a major JB blunder.

Frosh Michael Edwards replaced Dave Johnson at the start of BE schedule that year and thereafter started every game (4th in tot. mins played). He led the team to the BE title, beating a super Hoya team of Mourning/Mutombo and Stoudimire in the final game. He was the only true PG on the entire SU team. He was by this point in the season essentially a battle tested Soph. and that silly decision by JB cost us the game. If you rewatch the tape, you will actually see Coleman playing PG for a bit!

Edwards gets a bad rap because he lost his place the following year to the brilliant incoming Adrian Autry. By the way, the Minnesota game was Rich Manning's last in an SU uniform. He left and went on to great things at the University of Washington!

You may be right on the details of the '90 NCAA game vs Minnesota, but your BET memory is way off. We lost in the final to UConn in '90, imploded vs Nova in '91, and beat GTown (with Mourning, but not Mutombo) in '92. Edwards played very little in the '92 tourney, although he hit several big shots in the semis vs Seton Hall.

 

[orange2win]

Edwards had a better first year than people realize. His problem was that he was never able to build on it and declined instead of progressing.
(minutes per game - the rest per 40 mintues)

1989-90: 24.0m 10.5p 1.8r 8.5a 1.5s 0.1b +22.4 5.3mfg 0.4mft 4.1to 3.1pf -12.9 = 9.5NP 4.8OE 4.7FG
1990-91: 26.2m 12.0p 2.3r 4.0a 1.1s 0.1b +19.5 7.0mfg 0.6mft 3.3to 2.1pf -13.0 = 6.5NP 4.4OE 2.1FG
1991-92: 13.6m 13.3p 2.9r 3.6a 1.1s 0.0b +20.9 9.3mfg 0.7mft 2.9to 1.6pf -14.5 = 6.4NP 3.3OE 3.1FG
1992-93: 9.5m 10.7p 2.5r 5.9a 0.8s 0.0b +19.9 8.8mfg 0.8mft 4.6to 2.5pf -16.7 = 3.2NP 1.1OE 2.1FG

He could score but his assists declined as the talent level around him declined, (because of the probation). He missed more shots as he came to be relied on for more scoring. He had too many turnovers but improved in that area until his senior year when i suspect his decreased playing time might have impacted his concentration. The stats don't show his defense and as we've seen small guards don't do well in Boeheim's zone.

That Kenny Anderson would have been an upgrade is pretty obvious.

Good post with sound data. No unsubstantiated, loose, opinionated reflections from you

I actually think JB liked Michael Edwards as PG. I say this because the next season he had other options, yet Edwards still played 5th in minutes. With the arrival the following season (91) of Lawrence Moten (SU's greatest scorer of all time) and the massive advances in Autry and Hopkins games, the diminutive Edwards was relegated to the bench.

Our 89-90 team should never have lost to Minnesota.

 

[orange2win]

You may be right on the details of the '90 NCAA game vs Minnesota, but your BET memory is way off. We lost in the final to UConn in '90, imploded vs Nova in '91, and beat GTown (with Mourning, but not Mutombo) in '92. Edwards played very little in the '92 tourney, although he hit several big shots in the semis vs Seton Hall.

I am only referencing the 89-90 season in this string. The Hoya game I am referring to was played at the Dome March 4, 1990, in front of a national attendance breaking crowd (last reg. game of the season). Michael Edwards played 42 mins in that game, just 1 min. less than Billy Owens.

The massive Mutombo/Mourning duo was banged around pretty good by SU's future NBA players - Coleman, Ellis and Manning. McDAA Fr. center Conrad McRae did not play.

It was a great SU win (two top 10 teams) and Edwards was our point for most of the game.

 

[RF2044]

Good post with sound data. No unsubstantiated, loose, opinionated reflections from you

I actually think JB liked Michael Edwards as PG. I say this because the next season he had other options, yet Edwards still played 5th in minutes. With the arrival the following season (91) of Lawrence Moten (SU's greatest scorer of all time) and the massive advances in Autry and Hopkins games, the diminutive Edwards was relegated to the bench.

Our 89-90 team should never have lost to Minnesota.

Give me a break. Unsubstantiated? I saw how his career unfolded--as did everybody else on this forum, except you apparently. You're rationalizing an unsupportable position. Especially when you misapply the data to reach absurd conclusions, and fail to recognize the interpretive context of what the data tells you.

I think it is admirable that you are sticking up for a former player. But your defense is misguided, as he simply wasn't that good of a player. He was a pretty good shooter, and subpar in every other facet of the game. There was very little upside. Which is why his role diminished by his junior year, and even more his senior season.

Now, if you want to argue that the 89-90 team would have been better with improved point guard play--you'll certainly get no argument from me. That was clearly the team's Achilles heel. In large part because Edwards wasn't that good. He was a fraction of the player that his predecessor, Sherman Douglas, was and his freshman stats were bolstered significantly by playing on a loaded team that featured the future #1 and #3 picks in the draft.

There's nothing loose nor unsubstantiated about either of those facts.

 

[LPOrange]

I actually can confirm that we tried to play Coleman at PG that game... :bang:

If you go back to the game against Virginia in the round of 32, Coleman played a lot of PG in that game, too. In fact the Orangemen built a nice lead with Coleman playing point, creating his own shots, creating for others. Then I think he was told to stay under the basket and UVa clawed back. I come away with how impressive Coleman's skill sets were on that team. BTW, Coleman had the game-winning block in the final seconds, too.